


Worth Three Words

by calmlikesurrender



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Blow Jobs, M/M, Masturbation, worth three words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-08
Updated: 2013-01-08
Packaged: 2017-11-24 03:13:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/629734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calmlikesurrender/pseuds/calmlikesurrender
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt on the meme- "harry keeps a picture of him and louis from the leeds festival in his wallet. he gets off to it all the time, and one time niall walks in on it and demands to know what happened between them at the festival."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Worth Three Words

 It’s not Harry’s first intention to tuck the photo away, so it’s alright…technically… Conscience-wise, though? There’s room for debate.

            Regardless, he slips it from the others in the stack and folds it into the pocket of his jeans instead of tossing it. When Louis and the guys sort through the shots, laughing at some, cringing at others, Louis doesn’t even seem to notice that there’s one missing. A certain view of the top of Louis’ head, just the spray of light brown hair practically glowing in the flash, and the tip of his nose, then his pert lips pursed, stretched bright red around the head of Harry’s cock. And there’s no denying it’s Harry.

            You can clearly see the mop of dark curls hanging low, his head dipped. And the arm pressed against the other wall as he steadies himself is pale, the bright streak of a familiar bracelet stuck to the skin.

            No, there’s no denying it’s Harry and there’s no denying it’s Louis and there’s  _absolutely_  no way in hell to deny that the moment Harry had looked at it processed- really looked at it- he felt this strange urge to kiss him.

            Like a real kiss, not one that follows a few shows and ice-cold courage, so the photo is this heavy weight in the back of his jeans.

            He slips it out every now and then over the next few days. Usually after a morning with Louis when they’re tentative at best. Where they skirt around each other awkwardly, both afraid to say anything- to say too much, maybe. He knows Louis remembers, though he pretends not to. They’ll be in the kitchen or something and his hand will slip to Harry’s waist, he’ll lean into him like he’s about to kiss his neck, then pull away hastily, blushing a dull red. They’ll be home after a long day, tired and groggy, just irritated, and Louis will rest his head on Harry’s back, in the space between his shoulders, and sigh heavily. It’s usually alright because they did this before- close, hands, gripping, clutching- but never with the all-consuming static of that day pressed between them. Louis always pulls away like Harry’s skin sears to the touch.

            So Harry slips the photo out and looks at it for a moment, closes his eyes, and tries to remember what it had felt like to not have to think about it. To not have to plan every touch moments in advance, afraid Louis would shake his head without meeting Harry’s eyes like “Please, not now” or- worse- flinch away from his touch.

            Still the photo’s not exactly the easiest thing to conceal. Not when you’re constantly surrounded, prodded, by the boys and prep teams and over-eager teenage girls. He has a few close calls. The most intense with Niall who snags it when it slips from his back pocket one night when they’re out at dinner.       

            Harry snatches it back before he thinks there’s any real damage, but his face is a fiery red when Niall cocks an eyebrow and gives him a sneaky look.

            “Is that what I think it is?” he asks, motioning to where the photo is currently burning a hole in Harry’s hand.

            When Harry just nods, trying to seem nonchalant, Niall laughs, “Kinky” and that’s apparently the end of it. Harry folds it up behind his ID in his wallet and goes up to Zayn, starting a conversation about some girl Zayn was clearly trying to work up the courage to go over and talk to. It’s distracting enough that he can feel his heart beat steady, and he doesn’t notice the odd look on Niall’s face as he talks with Liam, because Niall had seen it was obviously Harry. And the fact that there was someone on her knees in front of him, some girl with short straight hair probably more than pleased at the chance to have the famous Harry Styles between her lips.

            Except he feels this strange pounding in his chest like when you hold your breath too long, because even from the quick glance he’d gotten of the photo, he could see the dark patches of hair on their legs. And the hand around Harry’s cock was thick and wide- too thick and wide to be a girl’s, right? And the stupid shirt, though. That shirt was the worst. How it hung loose on a set of broad shoulders, the thick curves and dips of unmistakable muscles under the fabric.

            Niall shakes his head and tries to ditch the thought because it’s absolutely nuts. There’s no way really for it to be what he thinks, so he laughs with Liam about something they’d seen earlier and tries to forget. When he’s falling asleep that night, barely on the brink of a thick dream, he thinks about it again fleetingly. And with that recollection, he finds the details murky at best. Were the shorts red or black? The hair might have been a platinum blond, lean smooth legs fading into the frame. And the light grip of long delicate fingers, _painted a dull pink, right?_  snug around hi-

—

             _“-Because, you know, there’s not much… room…”_

_Then the pause. A good one, too. They can’t just go straight there- they both know._

_So they pause._

_Louis leans into him and, with his palms pressed flat to Harry’s chest, reminds him that they’re all alone._

_“No one will see,” he says, slurring._

_Harry swallows a few times, his tongue suddenly feeling like cotton in his mouth, “It can’t_ just _be this,” he says, hoping Louis understands what he means between the lines. It’s already nearly impossible to think through the fuzzy rush of the alcohol and the calm musk of Louis’ cologne and sweat and his hands slipping lower to rest on his narrow hips._

_“What if it is,” Louis asks, “What if this is it?” It’s not some deep question- they’re both too gone for that. He seems to just need to know what Harry’s expecting. He doesn’t even really know where the words come from. They’re heavy in his throat but float past his lips, snag in the air around them on slick beer-colored hooks._

_“This is good for me,” Harry mumbles._

_“Me too,” Louis promises._

—

              He doesn’t really mean to do it.

            Well, he means to do  _it_ , just not with his eyes trained on that stupid picture.

When he’s standing naked just before a shower, he runs a hand down the plane of his stomach and just like that, he’s lower. With his eyes closed.

He gets a good memory going of a girl he’d brought up the night before who’d just stuck her ass up for him, pulling her skirt down to show him the bare skin between her thighs.

It’s good enough for a while, he just remembers the way she’d offered these filthy little moans between thrusts, fisting into the sheets and rocking back on his cock greedily.

But then all of a sudden the memory slips from him, and he’s thinking about Louis’ strong jaws instead. His cock throbs painfully in his grip and it’s not enough. He needs to remember. Like  _remember_.

In another moment he’s trotting over to the pile of his shedded clothes on the floor and dragging the photo from his wallet. Unfolding it and, with his cock in one hand- feeling like the world’s biggest pervert- he brings the photo to his lips and presses a soft kiss to the center.

He leans back against the bathroom sink then with the top of Louis’ head mocking him and with his long fingers snug around his dick, the other hand holding onto their photo like his life depends on it.

            He reminds himself constantly that this is one time. It won’t happen again. Even when he comes hard, dropping bonelessly to the floor with his skin sticky and slick with sweat, he still plays mantra-  _Just one time._

            Except it’s not and then he convinces himself that it’s alright. Sort of. So long as he never lets Louis know.

            The next time he has to try really hard to be alone-which is difficult when he’s constantly surrounded by the guys- so it’s not until he sneaks away to Zayn’s flat-  _“Think I might have forgotten my shades there”-_  that he can slip the photo from his wallet again.

            He just looks at it for a moment, not touching himself though he can feel the hard line of his cock against his thigh. He studies the picture for a sign or something that he’d missed. A clue that it wasn’t what Louis wanted. But they had both seemed so eager. It was only afterward when Louis had cut him off, pushed him away.

            He lies down across Zayn’s bed and tugs roughly on his cock with his lip between his teeth.

            He has to bite down hard not to moan, not to let Louis’ name get all tangled in his breath like it had that day. Because it’s one thing to have the memory. It’s another to utter loose syllables with his eyes closed and his hips jerking up into his palm. When he presses his thumb into the slit, coated in precum, it’s torture not to cry out. Even worse when he comes down and there’s no smiling idiot there who’s hair he can run his fingers through. Who he can kiss sloppily and taste himself on their tongue…

            After that it becomes sort of habit and he doesn’t make it to skin-on-skin without making sure the picture is close at hand.

He jerks one out one time with his head hung low, the photo sat on the kitchen counter. Usually it’s just him on his bed, though. He likes it that way because he can close his eyes between peeks and smell the faint traces of Louis in the room. It’s like he’s there then. Like before when they’d share a bed and kiss lazily (never going lower than the waist). Then once when he’d laid across the bed on his stomach with the picture on the pillow, hyper-aware of how creepy it was but too turned on to care. He’d rutted his hips against the sheets, groaning out low, breathy exhales, imagining the taut stretches of Louis’ skin beneath him instead of the covers and-

—

             _With his head thrown back, Harry’s afraid to look. Mainly because he knows it’ll be too much._

_Louis had just dropped._

_No warning. He unzipped Harry from his bottoms and started stroking him slowly. Every now and then licking up his shaft, unsure of what to do. He’d only ever had one blow job before and it wasn’t exactly elaborate. He didn’t have much experience to go on._

_Harry’s hard, though. Which is a pretty encouraging sign._

_And when Louis moves his hand down to make room for his mouth, there’s no mistaking the frustrated moan that slips from Harry’s lips. The desperate rut of his hips as Louis holds him steady with one hand to stop the burn at the back of his throat-_

—

-but he’s so fucking  _hot._ He yanks his beanie off to toss across the room, pulls his shirt from his chest and tugs it over his head, falling back on the bed. He’s angry.

Which just makes him want this more.

Angry because he’d had the perfect moment to speak with Louis about that day. They’d been all alone and quiet and they’d smiled and laughed like before. Like nothing had changed. But then he was inching closer and Louis hadn’t stopped him, so he’d just gone for it.

He’d pressed his lips to Louis’ gently, waiting for him to pull away. When he didn’t, Harry took it like an omen-  _Go ahead. Do it. More_.

But Louis didn’t exactly prompt him either. He just sort of sat there, letting Harry kiss him. Not kissing back. When Harry gave him a questioning look, Louis glared at him like he wanted nothing more than to punch him in the face.

“Was that enough?” he said in a low voice, but with so much venom that Harry’d jerked away from him like he’d been hit, “Are you good now? So you can stop watching me like you’re waiting for me to break down..”

“Louis, I didn’t-”

Louis pushed him back and got in a good glare before stomping off. He made it almost to the door before he whipped back around.

“This isn’t just me, Harry. You’re selfish, too.”

“Tell me what I did wrong.”

They watched each other, both too hot to back down.

And Harry had stayed that way, so fucking wound up, even after Louis had gone, because he knew exactly what he meant. He feels raw and exposed, but more than that there’s a fire in the pit of his gut that refuses to be sated.

He shrugs his jeans down just enough so that he can get his hand in his boxers.

            He’s too gone to try and drag it out, just starts stroking rough pumps, pathetic rhythm.

            His grip is so tight, the friction almost painful, but he sort of needs that. For it to feel like a punishment.

            He stops just long enough to spit into his hand.

            Thrusting up into his fist and there’s all this pressure on his chest and he can’t really breathe and he can’t understand why that only makes him pump harder. And the name’s there, right on the tip of his tongue.

             _Fuck. Fuck._

“Ngh,” he groans then a string of lewd moans slips past his lips. He’s so close Louis could walk in right then and he doesn’t think he could stop.

            “Lou, god.”

            It’s really all he can get out, and even that feels dirty. Except it seems to echo into the small room. It’s Harry’s wanton grunts, the harsh slip of his fingers, Louis’ name whispered like he’s the one there with his grip on Harry’s cock, dragging him so close to the edge.

            Or his mouth.

            Fuck, the warm rough feel of his tongue in circles around him, pressing just into the slit- he comes so hard then, it’s all he can do not to cry out. His entire body is shaking afterwards, which is sort of incredible. Until it’s not.

            Another moment, he’s fighting sobs, biting down hard on his lip not to make it worse. It’s so frustrating, but he can’t seem to stop. Even more so when he still has his hand under the band of his boxers, covered in his own cum.

            It’s sort of fate maybe that the door opens when it does.

            It could have been Liam or Zayn and it could have been just then, with him touching himself like that, fresh tear trails on his cheeks. It would have been fine- they’re all boys, it’s not exactly a crime to jerk one out in the middle of the afternoon.

            Except the door  _doesn’t_  open when he’s just like that and it’s not just Liam or Zayn with embarrassed or rude faces.

            It’s Niall and Harry’s crying, really crying, so he already feels ridiculous. But then he realizes, just as Niall slams the door again- shocked eyes and frantic apologies- that he had the perfect view of the photo in Harry’s other hand.

—

            It takes Niall a moment to even figure out  _if_  he should do anything, let alone what. He paces back and forth in the middle of Harry and Louis’ living room, focusing intensely on the dark swirls in the rug, on the harsh shreds of grey and green and gold. They should be sobering, but it’s just making him feel more sick.

            He can hear Harry’s heavy footsteps in the other room, and maybe he should just leave?

            He glances at the door, and it’d be so easy to just walk away from this. It’s fucking twisted really. Knowing beyond a doubt that it was Louis- what the hell- Louis on his knees for Harry in that photo from Leeds. Okay, so they’re close. They’ve always been close- everyone knew that. Except maybe they didn’t expect that they were close enough to drop trou.

            Which is…. whatever, it’s whatever.

            Except it’s not.

            Niall paces faster now, balling his hands up into fists, shoving them deep into his pockets. He’s trying to think it through. All he can recall is how distant both boys had seemed lately. How they would normally hang on each other, inseparable, but now it was like pulling teeth to get them to even talk. He and Liam and assumed they had a fight.

            But when you’re fighting with someone, you don’t jerk off to a picture of them giving you a … blowjob.

             _And_ \- he sighs, rubbing at the back of his neck-  _you sure as hell don’t cry your way through it._

            Thankfully the door to Harry’s room opens before Niall thinks his head might explode.

           Harry stands in the doorway awkwardly then in sweats, still shirtless, with his hair pushed back in a grey beanie. He watches Niall with his hands behind his back. Niall’s sure the photo is there, bundled in his grip, but he doesn’t say so.

            “We should talk,” is all he says, trying to keep his voice steady, watching as Harry makes his way over. He sits down on the sofa and, without a word, puts the photo down on the coffee table.

            It’s like he’s daring Niall to go there from the beginning, to just dive in. But Niall bites his tongue.

            “Are you alright, man?” he asks in a quiet voice, motioning to Harry’s bloodshot eyes.

            Harry drags his clammy palms across his legs.

            “Just ask me,” he says.

            Niall looks down at the photo then away quickly, feeling like a voyeur.

            “I just want to know.”

             “Know what?”

            He gives him a pointed look.

            “’S not exactly normal. To keep a photo like that…”

            “If it was anyone else, though,” Harry quips, leaning back with a sigh like just those words were draining.

            “But it’s not anyone else,” Niall reminds him, seemingly still as calm as before, even when his mind is racing ahead at a breakneck pace, “So it’s not so easy.”

            And half of Harry wants to just bolt. He’s counting the feet in his mind to the door. But the other half is so relieved to finally have  a chance to say something to someone- anyone- about what happened and how ill he feels and how raw it all stings, growing in his chest like a cancer.

            “I don’t know what you want me to say,” he mumbles, with his eyes closed.

            But a second later, he feels strong hands on his shoulders. He looks up to Niall’s eyes, his face so close, his mouth set in a determined line.

            “Don’t. Do. This,” Niall says, almost seething. He’s angry. Like really angry, Harry can tell- except he’s got no clue why. Niall digs his fingers into Harry’s skin and shakes him a little.

            “Just tell me,” he says, “Tell me what the hell is going on.”

             _I think I love him. I think I love him too much._

But he can’t say that. Even when he’s pretty sure Niall knows already.

             _I think I fucked up._

But it’s not enough.

            “This has nothing to do with you guys,” he decides on. Niall’s bright eyes narrow to slits.

            “This  _is_  us, you idiot.”

            And he’s right.

            Harry has to take in deep breaths to make it through the next few words.

            “It’s- it’s not easy…” he starts.

            Niall relaxes his grip, sits down and waits- albeit not patiently. His foot taps against the floor and he wrings his hands together slowly.

            “There was all this like, pressure. I guess, from the beginning. And then Louis was sort of…”

            “Distracting?” Niall offers, but it doesn’t feel right.

            Harry shakes his head.

            “No, better. Like, he was  _good_.”

            Niall chuckles then, glances to the picture on the table.

            “Obviously.”  

            Harry wants to bolt, just run, because it’s too much again.

            “It’s not even that, though,” he says, trying to explain, “That was the first time.”

            Niall looks at him dubiously.

            “No, honestly, I swear,” he says, “We were both drinking too much and then we ended up in the bathroom.”

            “With a picture?”

            Harry rolls his eyes.

           “Accident,” he says, “I had the camera in my other hand. I pressed the button when he did this… When I… erm, and I was going to delete it,” he races forward, “but it was after and we were joking around and then I just sort of forgot.”

            Niall seems to consider it for a moment, offers Harry a tentative smile, but then he leans back and frowns.

            “Why keep it, though?” he says, “Drunk moment in a bathroom, right? Why didn’t you toss it?”

            Harry squirms, suddenly uncomfortable, though he knew he’d have to answer this. Niall asks the question without saying the words.

             _And why were you jerking off to it?_

“Harry, are you and Louis like, together?”

            Bold. Just like that.

            “I don’t know,” he says, and even to himself it sounds ridiculous. That’s something that should be concrete. Together or not.

            “But you’re fighting?” Niall asks.

            Harry squeezes his eyes shut.

            “No, we’re- Just not talking.”

            The words hang there between them until Niall rests his hand on Harry’s knee. He squeezes gently.

            “Because of that day? The photo?” he asks, aware that he’s treading sensitive ground.

            Harry just nods.

            “The day, yeah. I don’t think he was as ready,” he says, then looks away with his eyes starting to shine, brimming with fresh tears. His heart pounds, “or I was as drunk.”

 


End file.
